


Milkshake of Lies

by sodapeach



Category: VICTON (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Idiots in Love, Light Angst, M/M, Strangers to Lovers, but it has a happy ending it’s fine
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-03
Updated: 2020-02-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:27:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22536244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sodapeach/pseuds/sodapeach
Summary: Subin stops by a cafe for coffee, but when he sees how cute the barista is, his brain stops working and he can’t make himself talk so Sejun thinks he must be a foreigner who doesn’t know how to speak Korean and Subin doesn’t have the heart to correct him.
Relationships: Im Sejun/Jung Subin
Comments: 22
Kudos: 85





	Milkshake of Lies

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone! 
> 
> I am terribly out of practice, and I’ve never written for Victon before so please consider this a clumsy warmup 😭 I hope you enjoy it anyways!

Subin wasn’t big on drinking coffee.

Not at 6 o’clock in the afternoon at least, but desperate times called for desperate measures, and he had one last exam left before he could finally be free from the nightmare that was Biology. 

To be fair, he could never be free from the nightmare that was biology, but he could at least be free from the nightmare was trying to memorize the genetic makeup of a toad frog.  _ Aren’t toads and frogs two different things? Wouldn’t that be like calling something an alligator crocodile? _

Subin doesn’t know. He just knows that he’s so tired he’s going to end up falling asleep if he doesn’t fill himself with approved-for-human-consumption diesel fuel.

There was a coffee shop right off of campus that he had walked past a dozen times, but he was always in too big of a hurry to go in. This time it didn’t matter if he took ten minutes waiting for a drink because he was going to spend the rest of the night in the library anyway.

The moment he walked in, he regretted his decision. Not because there was anything wrong with it, but it was because he didn’t think he would ever want to leave.

There was nothing on the outside that indicated it was themed, and he had literally never heard of this place from any of his friends before. If they did know about it, they were purposefully holding out on him and would have to be punished.

The first thing he noticed was the fact that it looked like he had stepped into the first level of Super Mario. The walls were painted with fluffy two dimensional clouds with rounded green hills and bushes along the bottom. The tables were made to look like the giant green plumbing pipes, and the light fixtures were gold colored blocks hanging from the ceiling with transparent questions marks on the sides. 

Even the cafe employees were dressed as characters from the games. A Princess Peach who was busy cleaning off a table greeted when he walked in, and there was a Mario and a Luigi working behind the counter. 

A smile crept across his lips as he wanted to laugh, but when he got close enough to really see them, there was nothing to laugh about anymore. In fact, it was as if his lips were glued together by an unseen force that refused to let him smile, or laugh, or even speak.

“What would you like,” the barista with the perfect glowing smile and the endless dimples asked. Subin was sure if he tore his eyes away from his face and look at anything else, he could force himself to form words.

First he looked down at the name tag.  _ Sejun-igi.  _ He should have laughed, but that didn’t help at all. Something about the bright green overalls and the goofy hat and the fake mustache activated some innate primal urge inside of him that forced him to erase the communication part of his brain (certainly from some forgotten childhood memory he was going to have to bring up to his therapist if he ever brought himself to see one).

Then he moved his eyes to the menu board behind  _ Sejun-igi  _ hoping that would help. Surely he could at least  _ point to something,  _ right?

But his balled fist stubbornly wouldn’t leave his side. Instead of helping him even the tiniest bit, it clung to the hem of his shirt like his life depended on it. 

_ Say something. _

“Ah! You must be foreign right,” Sejun-igi said. “Of course! You’ve got that look about you. You probably don’t speak Korean well.”

_ But I am Korean… _

“Let me see if I can help,” he said. He turned around to look at the board and pointed up. “Tea?”

Subin shook his head, finally able to move something.

“Chocolate?”

He shook his head again.

“Coffee?”

He nodded. Finally they were getting somewhere, no thanks to him.

“Hot?” he asked before making a hiss sound and fanning at his own mouth. 

Subin shook his head.

“Iced?” He asked before shaking his hand as if he was holding an invisible iced coffee and jingling the ice around.

He nodded.  _ Iced coffee is fine. _

“Iced coffee,” Sejun-igi said confidently to himself.  _ He’s so proud of himself. He’s really cute… _

Once he paid for his coffee that was a little more expensive than he would have liked, he went and sat down to wait for it. He wasn’t sure if the coffee was expensive because the cafe was themed or if it was because the barista thought he was a foreigner, but he seemed too nice to scam anyone. He wasn’t sure if he was  _ capable _ of scamming anyone.

_ He is  _ really  _ cute.  _

Sejun (at least that was what Subin assumed his real name was) never stopped smiling. It didn’t matter if he was taking an order, brewing coffee, or cleaning up a spill on the counter, he looked like he glowed from the inside. He could watch him smile all the time, but he had somewhere to be. He had to study. He sighed and was completely ready to get up and leave when Sejun brought his drink over for him personally, causing him to malfunction again and freeze in place.

“Thank you,” he managed, but he stuttered so hard, he wasn’t sure he spoke Korean either. 

_ Who am I? _

One thing was for sure, if he wanted to get anything done, he was going to have to get the hell out of there because if he saw one more glimpse of a dimple he was scared he’d never be able to reactivate his brain again.

  
  


Subin was pretty sure he passed his exam. At least that’s what he told himself as he walked out of the classroom with literally nothing left to lose. Thanks to the miraculous serge of energy his coffee gave him before he studied, he had somehow become a savant overnight.

Or he was completely kidding himself.

But the boost in confidence made him think that he deserved to treat himself. 

All he had to do was decide how he wanted to do that…

As he walked in the general direction of nowhere in particular, he made a list of all the potential things he could do in his head. He could go to the movies. He could go hang out with his friends. He could play mini golf. He could go to a video game room. He could go sing karaoke. As he walked into the Mario cafe, he had tons of ideas and no intention to do any of them. 

To his relief, the person at the register wasn’t Sejun, but the employee dressed like Mario.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

Subin glanced down at his nametag.  _ Hanse-o.  _ He was almost ready to open his mouth when a flash of green appeared and shoved poor Mario- er, Hanse-o, out of the way. 

“Ah!” He exclaimed. “My foreign customer! Hello!”

_ My? _

But now he was fucked because Sejun one hundred percent believed he didn’t speak Korean, and he didn’t know how he was supposed to explain that he did, but he thought he was so cute he forgot how to speak. Even though it was the next day, he still was stunned by his beautiful face.

Instead he smiled awkwardly and pretended like he had no idea what the hell he was saying.

“Do. You. Want. Coffee?” Sejun shouted, making sure to enunciate every word loud enough for the whole cafe to hear.

Subin bit his lip. He didn’t need coffee that late in the afternoon when he wasn’t staying up to study, but how was he supposed to pantomime anything without feeling like he was  _ super  _ lying?

Out of the corner of his eye he saw a cookies and cream milkshake and almost screeched in joy. He could do it. He could point. 

He lifted his finger up towards the sign, and Sejun’s gaze followed. He looked confused for a moment, but then the lightbulb went off as he realized that was what Subin wanted. He guessed he wanted it. He probably needed to get  _ food  _ and something not as  _ sugary _ , but it was either point at the giant milkshake or try to figure out the best hand gestures to ask for lemon tea and a bagel. He probably would have gotten kicked out for those two motions, he guessed.

At least if he kept coming back, he was going to get really good at playing charades… 

So he took his seat off to the side at one of the pipe tables and waited for his milkshake of lies. And then he came back again the next day, and the next day, and the next day until he was almost completely out of money for the month. Luckily for him, he was going to see Seungwoo and Seungsik that weekend and the two of them were likely to compete with each other to see who could spoil him the most.

Normally he had his pride, but after all, that place was far too expensive for someone on his budget.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed it! Please let me know what you think!


End file.
